Weren't they originally cancelled because the manufacturing cost was super high so the MSRP was out of line with what they were competing with? 80-90k MSRP and you're looking at a new mass market anything and even used exotics that blew the doors off it.

When the NSX was released in 90 it changed the whole car scene and forced Ferrari back to the drawing board. Here are some quotes from Wiki:

The 3.2L DOHC V6 engine received special attention as well. Each NSX-R engine was hand assembled by a skilled technician using techniques normally reserved for racing programs. Components of the rotating assembly (pistons, rods and crank) were precision weighed and matched so that all components fell within a very small tolerance of weight differential. Then, the entire rotating assembly was balanced to a level of accuracy ten times that of a typical NSX engine. This balancing and blueprinting process significantly reduced parasitic loss of power due to inertial imbalance, resulting in a more powerful, free-revving powerplant with excellent throttle response. Officially, Honda maintains that the power output of the Second-Gen NSX-R engine is 290 bhp (220 kW), which is identical to the stock NSX. The automotive press, however, has long speculated that the true output of the engine is higher.

The result of Honda's second NSX-R effort was a vehicle that could challenge the latest sports car models on the track, despite having a base design that was more than 15 years old. For example, noted Japanese race and test driver Motoharu Kurosawa piloted a 2003 NSX-R around the legendary Nurburgring road course in 7:56, a time equal to a Ferrari F360 Challenge Stradale.[12] The NSX-R accomplished this feat despite being out-powered by the Ferrari by nearly 100 bhp (75 kW) and weighing almost 100 kg (220 lb) more than the track-oriented Ferrari (at 1180 kg).

Honda's breakthrough engineering in the NSX was a major contributor to the design of the McLaren F1 as mentioned in an interview with McLaren F1 designer Gordon Murray (translated from original Japanese into English).[18] "The moment I drove the NSX, all the benchmark cars—Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini—I had been using as references in the development of my car vanished from my mind. Of course the car we would create, the McLaren F1, needed to be faster than the NSX, but the NSX's ride quality and handling would become our new design target." The NSX was marketed as the first "Everyday Supercar" thanks in part to its ease of use, quality and reliability. Murray himself remained an NSX owner for 7 years.

Yes, everyone knows that when released it was designed to compete (and did!) with the ferrari 348, porsche 993, etc... It was a great design then.

Then everyone caught up and honda didn't do significant updates to styling or power. The 997 carreras, f430, gallardo, lotus elise, corvette. Thats a tough crowd.

The ring stuff, those cars were known for being ringers and were not production. Its a tribute to the cars that they could hang anyway despite being underpowered and a 15 year old design. But for the cost, no way.

Honda didn't do anything because all the japanese carmakers were being held back by the 276hp limitation that was the law in japan at that time. They could have easily extracted more hp out of that car.

It's too bad they had that hp law in japan in those days because they were building some bad ass cars in japan. The Skyline, Supra, Rx7 and NSX were all way ahead of their time.

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